A History of Sanskrit Literature c13.12

c13.12

Kashmīr under Avantivarman before the close of the ninth century gives us a Buddhist epic of some interest, the *Kapphaṇābhyudaya*,⁴ which is based on a tale in the *Avadānaçataka* of the conversion of a king of the south who had harboured evil designs against the king of Çrāvastī. This topic is treated by Çivasvāmin in the full epic manner, manifestly under the influence of Māgha and of Bhāravi, for the structure of the poem is manifestly based on that of the *Kirātārjunīya* as well as of the *Çiçupālavadha*. The poem opens with a description of Kapphaṇa and Līlāvatī, his royal capital (i). A spy bears the news of the pride of Prasenajit and of his just rule, as in *Kirātārjunīya* i. The princes at the court are in confusion at the news (iii); there is held a council of war (iv), and an envoy is dispatched to bear the threat of war to Prasenajit (v). Then occurs the usual digression; the king is induced by a Vidyādhara to visit with him the Malaya mountain in order there to devise a plan of campaign (vi), in reality to allow of the time-honoured descriptions, in which he vies as regards figures of sound with *Çiçupālavadha* iv and *Kirātārjunīya* v. Then are fully developed the encampment of the host (vii), the seasons which unite on the mountain in order to permit of the poet describing them all in one canto (viii), the sports of the army with its women in the water (ix), then their amusements in roaming the woods and picking flowers (x). Sunset is now due (xi), and the moon must rise (xii), to excite the damsels to join with their unwarlike swains in a drinking bout (xiii), and then in the mysteries of love in the best manner of the Kāmaçāstra (xiv). The end of the night and daybreak are now inevitable (xv). The host, refreshed and encouraged by its debaucheries, marches (xvi), and a long drawn out conflict (xvii–xix) results in the conversion of Kapphaṇa (xx). The anthologies have some quite pretty verses, but all is very much at second hand, and in this case the master is decidedly superior to the pupil. The author clearly was well read in Sanskrit literature, and, very naturally for a Buddhist, he has a reference to the *Nāgānanda* of Harṣa in an allusion to the piles of bones of Nāgas slain by Garuḍa heaped up on the seashore beyond the Malaya mountains.